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PC Games (Games) Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games

Asheron's Call 2 Suffers World Shrinkage 30

Posted by simoniker from the the-walls-are-closing-in dept.
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to the Microsoft Games page announcing that the Asheron's Call 2 servers are being consolidated, "from the current nine worlds to a total of four worlds." Although no specific reason is given for the contraction of this PC MMORPG, it's presumed that lack of players is causing this consolidation, as the announcement also says: "Darktide will continue to be run as the PvP server. However, the population of the world is low and it may not be possible to keep it running." This merger is in addition to a smaller world merge which occurred this month.
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Asheron's Call 2 Suffers World Shrinkage More

Asheron's Call 2 Suffers World Shrinkage

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  • AC2 - the perfect example of what not to do (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MBraynard ( 653724 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @07:37PM (#6487234) Journal
    AC1, while old, was still the 4th largest MMORPG game and it had a pretty solid player development model and combat model. I, like many other AC1 players, was hoping AC2 would be a REAL sequel, taking what was good about AC1 and building on it, making it prettier and more potent.

    Well, the Devs at Turbine/MS decided to scrap what was great about AC1 completely, and made a very pretty yet very laggy brand new game. They also forgot about the content.
    So to this day there are many, many, many more players still in AC1 than in AC2, sort of the definition of a failure. And I don't see that turning around anytime soon.

    • I think the point was to leave AC1 running so that the people that loved that game would continue to play (and PAY), while AC2 would be a NEW experience. Not more of the same in a prettier shell, but something new.

      Regardless, I don't think it's a failure or even unpopular. But let's face it, AC2 is still fairly new, and most people have dumped it for the next "Johnny-come-lately" MMORPG ... Star Wars Galaxies.

      I personally couldn't be more thrilled. All the JACKASSES have left AC2, and I'm now free to
      • No, you are incorrect. AC2 was meant to be the place that AC1 would migrate to as MS has discontinued the sales of AC1 and their tech support people have been asking people who call in with AC1 related questions to go play AC2 instead.
        • The only reason they are consolidating those servers is because they can't afford the Windows 2003 Advanced Server licenses to upgrade them. :-P
        • Actually, you're incorrect. You're using anecdotal evidence to prove your point, but you arrived at the wrong conclusion. AC2 was never meant to REPLACE AC1. What's happenning at Microsoft is that they aren't making as much money per player on AC1 as they could be on AC2, and with the player count dwindling, they're trying to forcably migrate people to AC2. That's a business decision, and has nothing to do with what the original intent of the game was.
          • No, you are incorrect and simple logic demonsrates it.

            MSFT knew that as time went on, the AC1 engine would become dated and, compared to others, more limited in what it could offer.

            In order to retain the business of players who would leave AC1 inevitably over time, MS made AC2 - also with the intention of attracting new people to the franchise.

  • I heard a rumor from a friend of a friend that the machines are considering consolidation the planet Earth with 7 other parrallel universes. We're screwed :(

  • Sense of Nonsense (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 20, 2003 @08:27PM (#6487471)
    Well the reasons behind the cosolidation are numerous. The first reason deals with the small number of people play AC2 per world. This consolidation will help to get all of the players closer together. This means more interactivity and increased encounters in Kingdom vs Kingdom battles. This is a plus for the game.

    The second reason has little to do with the players and a lot to do with the economy. The cost of server maintenance will drop when the worlds are consolidated. Less servers means more overall profits. While this is not of concern to players it does help to support the company who is running the game.

    I must address the previous posts. Whether or not AC2 is better than AC1 is not relevant to this issue. To take that a step further nor is it important if AC2 is a good game. Personall opinions of this game do not factor into the decision to consolidate these servers. Those opinions and the fact that the number of people playing AC2 is less that was expected could be reasons to need less servers, but the main two reason were stated above.
    • This consolidation will help to get all of the players closer together. This means more interactivity and increased encounters...

      ...and more lag!
      • I must address the previous posts. Whether or not AC2 is better than AC1 is not relevant to this issue.

        Wrong.

        To take that a step further nor is it important if AC2 is a good game. Personall opinions of this game do not factor into the decision to consolidate these servers.

        They do if a game blows and next to nobody wants to subscribe to it, like AC2.

    • Those opinions and the fact that the number of people playing AC2 is less that was expected could be reasons to need less servers, but the main two reason were stated above.

      Both of the reasons you stated above have everything to do with the fact that it's a hideously unpopular MMORPG. If the game was at all popular, they wouldn't need to get rid of OVER HALF of the servers in order to have increased interactivity and better server populations.

      Also, if there were actually people playing this game, the co

  • PvP ecosystem (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dr. Photo ( 640363 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @08:36PM (#6487516) Journal
    "Darktide will continue to be run as the PvP server. However, the population of the world is low and it may not be possible to keep it running."

    This could be an ecological catastrophe! If the players keep killing each other off, pretty soon there won't be anybody left! :-)

  • MMOG fact of life (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PeteyG ( 203921 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @08:46PM (#6487563) Homepage Journal
    It's a fact of life for MMOGs that unless it's really really good, that the player base will explode for a period of time, and then fall off gradually (or rapidly if the next Star Wars Galaxies comes out). So this is just the natural progression of a MMOG. Eventually, there will probably be one or two servers for the die hard players.

    I expect that a lot of MMOGs will go down to one or two servers, keep only a few guys around for maintenance and operation, jack up the price to 20 bucks a month, and let the fanatic players keep having their fun. That would be a good way for games to stay around, keep the dedicated players happy, and still bring in a bit of money.
    • This boom and bust cycle for MMOGs highlights the fickle nature of todays consumers. I think it's a trend that will continue as the computer game market widens, as it has been for the last few years. There's always going to be a bigger, faster, shinier product being sold to the public. Interestingly, there are MUDs, MUSHs and MOOs that have been running for 10 years or more that still have an increasing playerbase as people (re?)discover them. In fact, it's possible that the current boom in MMOGs will i
  • if they don't want to worry about world shrinkage, just avoid world swimming.

    =sb=

  • missed opportunity (Score:3, Funny)

    by bigbigbison ( 104532 ) * on Sunday July 20, 2003 @09:56PM (#6487885) Homepage
    They missed an opportunity here. they could have made a big ocmic book style event out of this "Worlds are collapsing!" kind of thing
  • This kind of thing, server consolidation, seems inevitable as the player population of certain online games dwindles.

    I wonder what's going to happen to games that have player-owned infrastructure, such as buildings and property? I don't know if this game, Asheron's Call 2, has this. Everquest 2 is supposed to have this, though. Other games might also have this already. I wonder what will happen when the inevitable conflict occurs: one player owns land on a server, another different player owns the same land on a different server, and those two servers get merged together.

    Has this happened to other games before? If so, what was the outcome? Do they randomly determine which player gets the resources, auction it off, or just give it to the player that's played the longest or reached the highest level? It seems that merging servers would be the fastest way to lose players and finish an online game completely off, as they anger players by taking away the resources they have earned.
    • DAOC recently contracted their 2 Free-For-All PVP servers to just one server and most considered it a good thing.

      As for land owners, AC2 does not have a housing system for the players, so combining server populations will only result in seeing new faces. AC1, Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot are the only current US-centric(some korean MMOGs may have housing..but there are probably close to a hundred of them now so I've stopped following that scene) MMOGs that currently have housing. UO has been arou
  • was too cold. Oh well,at least no one saw it.
  • Thats too bad. Its actually a pretty likeable game if you give it the chance.

    Why did it fail? because it didn't have a half naked elf chick on the cover like some other MMORPG does.

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